1989

1989

1989

Sick of being governed by what’s withheld –
the machines were right, they taught us
to be stupid like them and not suffer. The rest
was easy, lulled by dreamless TV eyes –
it was The End of the World and The Attack
of the Monsters from the Postal News . . .
Re-living the horror of each moment-
to-moment of the group mind –
grey monitors where weird shapes move
and have their being, awaiting only
the signal to turn upon their masters?
Driving the Pacific Highway,
coal trucks and rain blowing flat off the sea.
Dim lights of container ships anchored offshore –
refinery stacks, bridgeheads against time’s
undertow – aware of a certain disjointedness
but unable to assert the reason why.
Low at heel in city-limit roadside motels,
each with its own story to undo you by –
black lists, ephedrine, red peril.
Dreamt of The Bomb under basement stairs,
counting down from childhood to the non-event.
Twenty Eight Famous Unsolved Murders!
Clocking in late for the return run –
the weighing station, the packing house.
You cross a deserted picket-line
to the zone where permissions are re-made –
eyes grown heavy in the darkness once again
surrounding them.